Time for my annual Christmas toast about the only story that matters this time of year: A Christmas Carol. It's been a Facebook tradition for years, but I don't want people commenting that the ghosts are anti-capitalist stooges and that reindeer de-wormer cures covid. /Stave-I As the clock tolls midnight and Christmas Eve gives way to the darkest hours of Christmas, raise a glass to Jacob Marley, because money and its trappings are only a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of our business: mankind is our business—the common good is our business.

Bartender here: the rest of you are fucked in about two weeks. As the vanguards of the pandemic, I can tell you that Omicron and the flu/whatever this cold is is ripping through the service industry at a 1:4 ratio, maybe 1:2 once I hear from a few people whose results have been delayed. We will survive but we are fuuuuuuucked.